Thursday, November 5, 2009

Claude Levi-Strauss, French intellectual, died recently. He became a famous anthropologist who studied primitive cultures. Cannibals, he suggested, tend to boil their friends and roast their enemies. Sounds a lot like Lyndon Johnson.

Evolution has a tougher time gaining traction in England and Germany than in Muslim countries. But one Pakistani lecturer nearly set off riots when he started talking about the time when the apes first began to stand up. Lineage. It’s all about lineage.

Personal privilege herewith: this month, I celebrate another birthday. It was 71 years (and nine months) ago that I won my first swim meet.

People who study these things now believe air pressure can create landslides under certain conditions. If you live inside the Beltway, move.

Here’s a mouthful: “Velib, Paris’s bicycle rental system, inspired a new urban ethos for the era of climate change.” The bikes cost $3,500 each and 20,600 were put on the streets. Thieves promptly stole 80 percent of the new bikes. That’s the old urban ethos.